Tales of Thanksgiving: A Drabble Collection
by Dawn Felagund
Summary: Series of fixed length ficlets written for friends and associates. I will try to post a new series daily for the month of December. Characters and topics vary but generally focus on the House of Finwe.
1. Curiosity

Last year, in a fit of ambition, I wrote full-length stories for many of my friends to give as holiday gifts, ending with a total of twenty stories, ranging in length from 500 to 10,000 words. This year, my schedule (and sanity) will not permit me this luxury. Nonetheless, there are so many people in this community to whom I am indebted: people who read my work and offer feedback and encouragement, who listen to my many gripes, who offer inspiration and laughter when I need it the most. Regardless of religious affiliations and personal traditions, I like to use the winter holidays to remember my friends and show my thankfulness for the many gifts that they give the whole year through.

During the month of December, I will write and post thirty-one fixed-length ficlet-series. While real life and travel often will not allow me to post daily, I will do my best to keep up.

Content and ratings will vary quite widely for this project, as I am working based on the requests and preferences of friends, so please read and heed the warnings that precede each series. If you don't like sex or slash or violence in stories, then please be mature and intelligent enough to skip the content that will likely bother you. When primitive organisms lacking a brain can learn a basic avoidance response, then it really says something for those who claim to hate certain types of stories and yet continue to read them anyway. That said, I welcome feedback and constructive criticism from those who are capable of behaving in a civilized manner.

While individual pieces might have been written for particular people, the series as a whole is dedicated to all of those who have read me, reviewed me, helped me, and encouraged me throughout the last year. Thank you!

This first drabble series "Curiosity" was written for Angaloth, who I know fancies Fëanor and Nerdanel above all others. It is a series of three hundred-word drabbles about what might have first inspired their love…and led to their demise.

This series contains some very mild sexuality but should be suitable for teenaged and adult audiences.

**Curiosity**

**I.**

As a child, my father said, I was but a pair of wide eyes peering over tabletops. Under tables. Into hidden nooks and corners. My fingernails had crescents of dirt beneath them from putting my hands where they did not belong.. I inspected the lock and built a key and used it to enter my father's forge, curious about the wonders I might find there.

He warned me, "Careful, Nerdanel, for your curiosity will burn you!" catching my small hands reaching for a chunk of coal that—still black on the outside—upon being broken glowed red within, with fire.

**II.**

Fëanáro served opposite me as an apprentice, and I would watch his hands as he worked: slender and pale and quick as spiders, hypnotizing to watch, making nimble work of the most complex tasks.

But he was careless and would cut or burn himself in his haste—his curiosity—fingers welling in blisters that pained me to see. "But Nerdanel," he told me, "it is worth it!" Lifting a finger to his mouth to cool the pain. I watched his hand. I watched his lips and envied them, for possessing his hand.

And envied his hand, for possessing his lips.

**III.**

On the day he put light into stone, he pressed it into my palm, and I claimed light.

He folded my hands in his, always warm and no longer scarred, for he was too skilled for that now.

Curiosity: it fluttered inside of me, plunked with a hot and heavy weight into my belly and burned there.

I reached across the space between us, only my father was no longer there to warn me of my curiosity, from unseen fire within the body that I touched in reverence, closed my eyes and kissed.

Stone—light—forgotten, we claimed each other.


	2. Strange

This series is for Lady Elleth, who asked about how Nerdanel and Fëanor perceived their strange fourth-born son Caranthir. In the Felakverse that I use in the majority of my stories, Caranthir has the special gift of osanwë—or mind-speak—and perceives people interestingly as a result. While he remains dark and strange, his special gift also gives him extraordinary insight into the hearts and minds of those closest to him. This series of four double-drabbles explores this idea.

**Strange**

**I.**

I dreaded the most the birth of my fourth-born son Carnistir, for his brother Tyelkormo had been a difficult delivery and I feared for my wife's health and safety. On the day that she told me that she again carried my son, we pressed together—forehead to forehead—nearing a kiss, but it wasn't only joy that we shared. There was fear too, something dark. The way that doors used to always close in my presence, when I was small, before the loss of Þerindë my mother. A room full of light but a dark space beneath a door that was all I could see. So was my wife's fourth pregnancy: a time of joy darkened beneath, annoying and relentless and shameful.

But yet not entirely. I'd lie beside her at night with my hand upon her belly. Upon Him, our son unnamed, and it was strange: It was as though a hand had reached back, soothed me into peaceful dreams, twining my fingers with His. It was as it had been when I'd been very small and always knew when Atar had come by my bedside for the lack of nightmares.

How, amid my fear, I slept in peace.

**II.**

My father had a strange gift. I'd come upon him once, sitting with Ingwë the King of the Vanyar, and they had been opposite each other as though in conversation, yet words were not exchanged. I'd watched for a long time, thinking myself hidden beneath a table covered with a long cloth. For hours, they did not speak, yet the air was busy between them, in the same way that a room alive with voices and laughter will seem to swell, like the joy cannot be confined in so small a space. I _felt _voices, yet I did not hear them.

But decisions were made that day. My father was to be wed again, and he and Ingwë clutched each other in joyful farewell yet spoke no word of salutation. And I understood that those awakened by the Waters of Cuiviénen were indeed the Children of the One and spoke in voices alike to that of the One that passed as rain and wind and simple laughter. Words upon a breath, wrapping a heart, raising the hairs on my arms even as they smiled, secret and silent, in an understanding that I—for all of my gifts—seemed to lack.

**III.**

I went to my father when, by Carnistir's first begetting day, he still had not spoken. In fact, he acted utterly contrary to what I asked of him. Clutching my legs and pushing his face into my knees when I'd become angry with his mother and asked him to leave me, to find his brother. Putting a small hand over my mouth before the words in my thoughts could wound Nerdanel further.

And she came. And embraced me. And forgave me.

And Carnistir: he scurried away and found his brother, as I'd asked.

My father laughed at my worries and lifted my strange fourth-born son. Carnistir stopped wordlessly babbling and let his forehead fall against Atar's, and for a long while, they sat that way, as though I was no longer there. Irritation tickled my thoughts, and my father's eyes opened. He laughed.

"He understands, Fëanáro, far more than you know. I expect that he will speak any day now."

On the ride home, Carnistir laid a hand alongside my face, and—strangest of strange—spoke at last in a voice clear and practiced, "Atar…" like he was the father and I the son, the one in need of comfort.

**IV.**

"This one is special," Nerdanel had said on the day Carnistir had been born. "This one is _different_."

Indeed, he was. Carnistir alone did not to weep when she left us, even in secret, the way we caught tears with the backs of our hands before they could shame us. When I was small, my father used to tell me that I wept because I did not yet understand the reason for pain. The connection between hurt and healing. Pain and hope.

I insisted: There was no connection. It was all senseless misery.

But Carnistir, he sat beside me as I wept, thinking myself alone. His fingers twined with mine, and he did not look at my face, understanding my shame, my vulnerability. He did not weep, as though he understood Nerdanel's heart better than I, her husband.

The day my mother had died, I'd sat against my father's chamber door, staring at the black space beneath. It stayed dark for so long—then a flicker. Then _light._

Or Carnistir's hand in mine, warm where I was cold. His thoughts heavy against mine, recalling love, not betrayal.

He held my hand until the tears stopped.

And I began to understand.


	3. Effortless

"Effortless" was written for Angelica. Earlier this year, we had a conversation about my character of Maedhros (Nelyo) in my stories _Another Man's Cage_ and "Essecarmë" and his quiet strength that I have tried to capture in these stories. While Maedhros has done his share of noble deeds, equally important—and probably more difficult—was the task of reuniting the Noldor and playing damage control for his little brothers.

Yet the conundrum always arises that what is most skillfully done seems to be most easily done. This series of four drabbles explores this idea, from the point of view of Maglor.

For readers unfamiliar with my other stories, Vingarië is Maglor's wife.

**Effortless**

**I. The Father**

On the day that Nelyo told our father that he would no longer study lore but would serve as a court page in Tirion, Tyelkormo and I pressed our ears to my bedroom wall—adjacent to our father's study—and listened, fists clenched, cringing in anticipation of the explosion that must surely come.

It did not.

Nelyo rode back to Tirion, and for a long while, Fëanáro would not speak against him, though surely, he must have believed that he'd been betrayed. The air was heavy and hard to breathe around him, but he did not speak out against Nelyo.

**II. The Minstrel**

As one of the best musicians in Tirion, I played in the halls and homes of the most respected of the Eldar. Nelyo came when he could, but the life of a page is simple and arduous, and he hadn't much time to spare for joy.

I was miffed, though, because my skill was rarely praised as loudly as the others. Vingarië laughed at my offense. "My dear, that is because your music is so effortless in its joy that we forget to marvel. We forget that such beauty is a gift and not simply the way of the world."

**III. The Diplomat**

Nelyo ascended, as did I, each in our own station. He was one of Grandfather's councilors, and his work was easy, I often thought: much walking-about in gardens and fancy suppers with lords. And smiling. Always smiling. Whereas I came home late each night, reeking of sweat, my voice raw, and my fingertips tender from the harpstrings.

"Do you practice smiling," I would tease, "in front of mirrors? To be good at what you do?" For I was slightly sickened by his success, even as he was unfailingly proud of mine.

Though he never came to hear me play anymore.

**IV. The Brother**

I came home one night and found Nelyo in my music room, waiting by a guttering fire with a glass of wine pressed to his forehead. "I am exhausted," he whispered. "Our father—"

Then he stopped. And smiled.

"But no mind that, little brother," he said. "I am exhausted, and all that I wish is to fall asleep to the sound of your singing, as I used to do when we were young."

Despite his exhaustion, his eyes were bright; his face untroubled.

And I knew that whatever darkened his heart would not be permitted to yet darken mine.


	4. Sense of Swords

This series of three double-drabbles was written for Ellfine, who is a fellow Finarfinatic and believes—as I do—that he was not the wimpy, soft-hearted king of fanon lore. "Sense of Swords" follows Finarfin through his decision to travel to Middle-earth at the end of the First Age to join his people in fighting Morgoth. The line about this in _The Silmarillion_ is rather ambiguous about whether he joined the other Noldor in this battle, but I like to think that he did.

**Sense of Swords**

**I.**

We arrived in the Outer Lands by night, while all slumbered below deck. Except me. I stood at the railing and teased apart the blackness that was the sea and sky on a moonless night and the space between the two of them: the Outer Lands. Middle-earth. Beleriand. Those reborn among us spoke of this strange, dark place caught between the night sky and the ink-black sea. Where all five of my children had gone.

I recalled the candles carried by Eärwen after the Darkening when visiting her sister-in-law. I would sit, pressed to the glass of our window, and watch the flame flicker smaller and feebler until the darkness had claimed all sight of her. I wondered how my children had appeared from the shore: five tiny lights, going out one by one?

I wore a sword at my side: heavy and foreign, like it did not belong. I had studied with it, yes, but it was like dancing with a stranger: practiced and rigid. Holding my children, speaking with a friend, making love to my wife—those belonged.

But my hand gripped the sword as though we were familiar, the shore growing large and dark in my sights.

**II.**

Eärwen had not wished me to go. She never said as much but I knew. I knew in the way that she would touch me without reason; linger longer in a kiss. She'd hated my sword from the day Nolofinwë had given it to me—still more after the Kinslaying—yet she bade me to practice and even watched. Praised me.

No, I said, do not learn to love this art or my skill in it.

And she had replied, Perhaps had the children been trained….

Catching me in a wordless embrace, amid the darkness to which we'd become accustomed.

Eärwen had not wished me to go. Yet she accompanied me to the harbor and strapped my sword to my side, as all of the wives were doing for their husbands. Four candles snuffed; four children lost. Would I be next? She must wonder. Yet her hands smoothed my tunic without trembling, and her smile was resolute.

You are very brave, she told me, and I held her close and neither had to see the terror—or the tears—in the other's eyes.

She released me first, and as she stepped away, I whispered, Nay. You are braver than me.

**III.**

Standing upon the soil of this "Middle-earth," it was impossible not to superimpose the present with imaginings of the past. This river called "Sirion": had my Findaráto knelt here to drink? Was this earth pressed by the boots of Angaráto and Aikanáiro? And those flowers that looked a bit thin, perhaps because Artanis had gathered of them to twine into Artaher's hair as he slept, to annoy him?

I found myself lifting fistfuls of earth to my nose. I could smell them! My children! The pang deep in my gut, of loneliness for home and times long passed: the powder we'd put on infant Findaráto's skin; Aikanáiro's toys left in the garden to become filthy during the mid-afternoon rains; the clay bowl shaped by young Artanis's hands, ugly and adored.

I cupped the dirt in my hands; made mud of it with my tears.

For the earth smelled of metal also: of blood and swords and torment in dark places, and surely, I had not allowed my beloved children to come to such grievous ends?

It smelled of the sword at my side that I held tighter now in muddied, ignoble hands as I marched, fearless, forward, into the darkness.


	5. Of Love, Mischief, and Flowery Prose

My dear friend Rhapsody adores Celegorm and Maglor, so gifts for her always involve trying to fit them together into a story. In "Of Love, Mischief, and Flowery Prose," young Celegorm realizes the gravity of the pranks that he plays on his older brother Maglor and seeks atonement for his misdeeds.

The relationship that might have existed between these two contrary brothers is a source of endless speculation for me "Of Love, Mischief, and Flowery Prose" is set during the same year as my novel _Another Man's Cage,_ so Celegorm is equivalent to a seven-year-old and Maglor is a young adolescent. The ficlet is a quibble, so it is exactly five hundred words.

Happy Sinterklaas, Rhapsody, and thank you for all that you do!

**Of Love, Mischief, and Flowery Prose**

My brother Macalaurë is in trouble with our father most often of any of us. I am rambunctious, Nelyo is contrary, and Carnistir is downright mean (or so Atar says), but it is boring Macalaurë who is in trouble the most.

Occasionally, it is my fault.

Occasionally.

For I adore—absolutely _adore,_ in the same way that I adore strawberries, swimming holes, and newborn hound puppies—annoying my second eldest brother. Annoying him until his ears turn red and he wastes his pretty voice on screaming not-so-nice words at me. That Atar inevitably hears. And punishes him for.

Then, later, I think of it with regret, for Macalaurë is kind (usually) and rarely deserving (truly) of my mischief. Like when I knew that he was to meet his girl-friend on the morrow and spent the whole day washing and pressing his best clothes and even wiped the mud off of his boots, only to have me trip the next morning while running from Carnistir (who was trying to bite my hair) with a cup of grape juice and—

Well, it was an accident that I tripped. It truly was. However, I could have aimed for the big expanse of floor that would have been easy to wipe up instead of Macalaurë.

White tunic turned purple and grape juice dripping off the tip of his nose, Macalaurë called me "cur of Oromë" and other things that I am too young to hear, much less repeat.

So Macalaurë did not see his girl-friend that day. He was permitted to make his excuses and send a letter of apology, though Atar read it first and made him rewrite it three times for whining too much or being senselessly malicious or being too sentimental. Macalaurë's excuse for the latter complaint was that he merely wished her to know that he loved her. "She knows," Atar said, "without flowery prose." For my role in the hubbub, I was to deliver the letter to our neighbor, who was going to Tirion and would see the letter received by Vingarië.

I was sent to Macalaurë's bedroom to collect the acceptable fourth attempt at a letter. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he shoved the letter into my hand without a word or glance. He was back to wearing his boring gray tunic and trousers, and the ones I'd ruined—made clean and pretty the day before—were balled up in the corner.

I will admit: I felt bad then. But my stubborn tongue would not twist into an apology, and I left Macalaurë alone, letter in hand, to go to the neighbor's.

It was a beautiful day at the start of autumn, yet I'd ruined it for my brother. Skipping along, enjoying the warm breeze and midday Treelight, this gave me pause. And when I paused, I saw that the autumn orchids were in bloom, nodding violet heads over the road.

Carefully, I affixed one to the letter. So that Vingarië would not doubt that Macalaurë loved her.


	6. Hands and Voices

For Tuxedo Elf, I have written a quibble—exactly five hundred words—about Rúmil. Rúmil was the creator of the Sarati, the original Elven alphabet that inspired Fëanor's Tengwar.

Anyone familiar with my personal storyverse knows that I have a rather dark explanation for how Rúmil came to develop the Sarati. This quibble, however, suggests that writing may have been a gift Rúmil discovered long before he invented and used the Sarati in my darker version of the tale.

This quibble makes several assumptions.

For one, it assumes that at least Ingwë and Rúmil were among the Elves awakened at Cuiviénen. I know that the former is an issue of some contention, but I have always preferred that the four Eldarin kings be among the Unbegotten for various reasons.

Secondly, I am not well versed in the Sarati. I have used the version compiled by Ryszard Derdzinski in developing the idea of this quibble. An illustration of the first word that Rúmil spells with his fledgling alphabet is posted in my LiveJournal and will probably make better sense of this story. (My LJ can be accessed as the homepage listed on my profile.)

Lastly, I have personally never liked the version of the tale of Cuiviénen that has each Elf awaking beside his or her spouse. I do use it here for Rúmil. I do not assume the same of the Eldarin kings (as this makes it impossible for them to be among the Elves awakened at Cuiviénen.)

**Hands and Voices**

We were given hands and voices by The One so that, with them, we could create beauty. Or so we were told by Ingwë, who sat at the head of the fire and told us these things.

Hands and voices: each of us given two of the first and one of the second for making beauty. One I'd been given, great and exquisite, but the other two I seemed to lack. I had hands, of course, but what came of them was not beautiful. Others crushed berries and dabbed patterns upon surfaces of rock. Or they squeezed clay dug up from the riverbanks into shapes like Quendi and gave both as gifts.

Ingwë told us that The One had built us of the sand beside the lake, upon which we'd awoken. That is why our eyes sparkled in the starlight and why our skin was soft and supple, not coarse like the pelts of the beasts that prowled just outside the circle of our firelight. That is also why we were strong, he said, for one could not crush sand in his teeth, and the cleverer among us had even begun to rub it on rocks to shape them in new ways.

I was not skilled enough for that.

So I never had gifts to give. I could lift my voice in song, but the gift was ephemeral, gone and forgotten by my next breath, whereas the rocks and clay were cradled in hands and loved even as the shifting stars blew across the sky overhead.

This grieved me.

It grieved me for there was one whom I sought to give a gift, only she was not built of sand like me, but made of water itself, able to take a single point of starlight, spread it thin, and throw it back one-thousandfold. I never dared say it aloud, but I believed that the water, then, was more beautiful than the heavens and all of the stars. And she was more beautiful beside, taking a single point of happiness and making joy one-thousandfold.

I adored her. And I had no gift to give.

Many songs I composed, but the wind tore them apart. Lying upon by back beside the lake, I thought of her. My songs of her. Just as the sound of water made me think of shimmering waves or the wind in the trees made me see a ripple of starlight upon leaves, so the thought of her song made me think of her. Made me think of the moment I'd awakened—life breathed into sand—and saw her with her back against a tree and the sickle-stars bright in the sky overhead.

My first thought had been: I love her.

Love her.

Love.

Even my clumsy hands could take a shard of flint and chip away that shape into the face of a softer stone: the sickle-stars bright above the tree, the place where love had begun. And so I named it, my gift for her: love.


	7. The Space between Hearts

Oloriel loves the Fëanorians above all else and admits to a recent fascination with Maedhros's captivity in Angband. Though it might seem a bit odd of an addition to a collection of stories to be given as gifts for the holidays, I have written about the captivity of Maedhros from the strange perspective of Caranthir.

In my storyverse, Caranthir is able to sense the spirits and thoughts of others. I use this idea in "The Space between Hearts."

Unfortunately, this archive will not allow me to properly represent some of the odd formatting used for stylistic purposes. This series is best read in my LiveJournal, which is linked as my homepage on my profile, where I could use the strange characters needed to achieve the proper effect in the fifth drabble.

This story is dark and disturbing and contains violent images. Sensitive and squeamish readers should tread with care.

**The Space between Hearts**

**I.**

_How did you forsake him? Your own king? Your own _brother

These questions were never asked outright. But we Noldor had gotten good at not being heard and yet hearing rumors borne upon the wind. I saw Nolofinwë's people watching us in the days following our reunion, their lips set stern and silent. It was their eyes—their hearts—that asked it: _How?_

And I heard.

How then? Not easily. Least of all for me, Carnistir the Dark and Silent, whose blackened heart was said to have tipped the decision about Nelyo in favor of forsaking him to Morgoth's cruelty.

**II.**

The rumors were many and varied, and I heard them all: whispers of thoughts exploding in our wakes as we walked the streets at Nelyo's bidding, greeting people over whom we no longer presided.

It was said that Tyelkormo had lusted for the crown and thought that with Nelyo removed, Macalaurë would be easily overthrown.

Or Macalaurë: he had sat long in agony and indecision, paralyzed by his own cowardice.

Or that I had reminded my brothers of our oath to the Silmarils and that we had made no such oath to Nelyo.

The truth, of course, is much different.

**III.**

For what outsider knows what happens in the secret darkness between the hearts of kin?

It is said that we do not begin to remember until we are a year of age, yet I remember that Nelyo was the third to hold me after I was born. I remember that in the silver light of his spirit, there was never a need to cry.

I do not remember Amil or Atar. But I remember Nelyo.

His lips were warm against my forehead and a whisper—_I love you_—the words of which I did not understand. The meaning: I did.

**IV.**

I never measured my love for Nelyo in kisses and kindness, as most do. We rarely spoke but we knew. It was there, in the space between our hearts, where words dissolve and become meaningless.

In the days of his torment, I went to him every night. He was not hard to find, for I had known that silver light since the day of my birth. He was a beacon in the darkness of Angband. I went to him and watched as they burned him, whipped him, and broke his bones. I endured it with him, while the others slept.

**V.**

He spoke to me sometimes.

"Carnistir. Go."

The other prisoners thought him delusional: a king from over the sea who was tormented more than most, speaking in strange tongues to the empty air.

"I do not want you to see this. _Me._ Like this." Legs grown thin and scarred, bound wrist and ankle, body naked, stretched and waiting. My thoughts reached for him, and I stood beside him. I would endure what he endured.

But I would not speak of it. Even to our brothers, though they asked with their eyes. The secret: it lived in the space between us.


	8. Eru's Blessing

For Allie is a quadrabble—exactly four hundred words—about Nerdanel. Little is said about the wife of Fëanor in _The Silmarillion,_ but I have always seen her as a strong and courageous woman. In this quadrabble, she gives her father the surprising news that she has gone away and married a high prince without first seeking his permission.

**Eru's Blessing**

My father was not pleased; I could see it in the way he bustled around the workshop, keeping his hands busy and his eyes from meeting mine, as though afraid that the hands would betray him and tremble—or maybe strangle my young husband waiting outside—or that his eyes would show the depth of his disappointment in me.

But disappointed or not, it was too late: We were wed. Married with neither blessing nor permission, in the wilds of the forest between Tirion and Formenos with only the witness of Eru.

"The King—does he know that his firstborn son has taken a bride?" He was turning a mold in his hand, calloused thumb searching for imperfections along the surface. "Taken a bride without his blessing, like a heathen in the Dark Lands?"

The mold: cast to the table with a clatter. I winced.

Fëanáro had wished to come with me so that we could deliver the news to my father and his master, side by side. I had grown accustomed to having Fëanáro at my side in the past three years; grown accustomed to letting him be strong when I lacked the will. To letting him speak first. But this I had to do alone, to remember my strength as a woman and a daughter, not a wife.

"We had the blessing of Eru, Father. And we—I believe that that was enough."

His gray eyes were cold as steel upon my flushed face. I could see him appraising my well-being and finding reason to fault Fëanáro. I kept my arms crossed over my body, lest he notice how I'd changed. His voice quavered on the brink of anger. "You have become proud, Daughter—like him—to think that you know the will of the One."

"In this matter, Father, I do," I whispered, and I waited for him to cast me forth from his workshop, to denounce me as his daughter for such blasphemous behavior.

But something interrupted us then: a thin cry that made us both turn to find Fëanáro at the door, gray eyes wide and voice reduced to a near-whisper. "I am sorry to interrupt. But he wants his mother."

Passing to me little Nelyafinwë, who stopped crying at my touch and settled against my breast. My father's eyes widened, and I knew that he understood. And never again would he question Eru's blessing.


	9. From the Doors of Night

A long while ago, Appoggiato won the Spot the Bad Pun contest that I'd had for a chapter in AMC. Her prize was a story of her choice, and she asked for a story about Maglor during the happier times of the Fëanorian family. I've still yet to write the story, but I offer four drabbles in the meantime about Maglor during one of the happier times of his childhood. (And I will one day actually finish the full story!)

**From the Doors of Night**

**I.**

It was nearing my begetting day—within a fortnight, even—when my mother failed to rouse me for breakfast one morning, and I found her sitting at table, having sent my brother to his lessons with a banana and cup of milk. Her eyes were red. She looked weary.

"Where is Atar?" I asked, climbing on her lap. Her arms closed around me, but it was more reflexive than anything, like blinking when something came at your face.

"He has gone off." Rubbing at her eyes suddenly and drying her fingers on her skirt when she thought I wasn't looking.

**II.**

"Where is Atar?" I asked Nelyo, who always worked at his books but worked more when Atar was "gone off."

"Gone off," he answered, and his face clenched in concentration.

"Gone off where?"

He sighed. "The Doors of Night. Be gone, Macalaurë. I am busy."

I snuck Nelyo's lorebooks and read about the Doors of Night. _A black sea,_ it said, _and darkness impenetrable._ I thought of the darkness beyond the doors of my closet and shivered for Atar, who had scared away the blackness there once with a lantern—and the fear too. I hoped he'd taken enough lanterns.

**III.**

_The Doors of Night,_ I read in another book, _are the only place where blackwood trees grow, producing wood of astonishing quality._

Atar came back and took something to his workshop and didn't appear again for many days more. So it was like he was never back at all. Amil was still sullen and Nelyo still worked at his books, and I wondered what he'd brought. Certainly not blackwood. Atar didn't care much for working with wood. Too easy, he said.

My begetting day drew nearer and nearer and then it was tomorrow. And it seemed that everyone had forgotten.

**IV.**

We had breakfast on my begetting day and were a family again. Even Atar came, though he looked tired from many days of ceaseless labor.

"Would you like to receive your gifts after breakfast?" he asked, and though he was exhausted, his eyes gleamed like adamant beneath dust so you know that—though dirtied—it is something you should treasure.

He hastened from the room, before I could answer, and returned with my gift: a harp made of blackwood brought back from the Doors of Night.

His eyes brighter than adamant, as though my joy had washed his exhaustion away.


	10. Shattered

"Shattered" is a series of three double-drabbles about the relationship between Fëanor and Finwë, a relationship that is characterized by a charming blend of betrayal and obsessive love and culminates in exiles, heretic oaths, and kinslaying. This series is dedicated to Aramel, who understands as well as anyone the power of angsty Finwions.

**Shattered**

**I.**

When I was small, I made a gift for my father on Awakening Day. I stole a trowel from the gardener's shed and stomped my feet about the garden until _thump-thump-thump,_ they came upon clay. Triumphantly, I extracted my prize from the earth and made for him with my own small hands a vase that I imagined worthy of holding the most beautiful of Yavanna's flowers.

I got mud all over my hands and face that day, and I had to be given two baths because the first tub of water turned so muddy that it covered my whole body in a scrim of dirt that had to be washed away in clean water. And the gardener loudly lamented the patch of lawn I'd ruined—until my father silenced him with a stern glare, that is.

For he was proud of me. He took my vase and placed it in at the top of the stairs, upon a small table, where all could see. Not even on the family floor, where I had my bedroom next to his and no one went but us two and the chambermaid but the _lords' hallway_ where all could see my gift and marvel.

**II.**

Not long after, my father announced that he was to wed Indis of the Vanyar, and all of the halls of my father's home became unhappy for me. The family hallway was no longer a place for just my father, the chambermaid, and me because _Indis_ was there now. In my father's chamber, next to mine, where I could hear her voice answering his in laughter, and I thought, _Imposter! Sycophant!_ and my stomach twisted until I was sick in the basin.

But the lords' hallway was worse. There, my father's marriage was a happy thing, and my attendant misery was thought strange and malicious. Manipulative, they called me. The lords began to avoid me, and I went there only to listen at doors, where strange words united my father and Indis. Not love: _Well connected. High family._ Politics.

Good politics. Good politics accompanied by glossy smiles that I could not mimic and soft grasping hands. My hands were growing hard with calluses.

Soon, I went there no longer. And I was more than glad to forget my vase—I had learned in my lessons with Aulë that it was mostly mud anyway—and the love that had inspired it.

**III.**

On the day of my exile from Tirion, I spent long hours in my father's study. "It was not my choice, to exile you," he said, but I knew—even as he said it—that had it been, he would have seen me exiled anyway.

It was the last time that I would pass down the lords' hallway, though I did not then know it. I was leaving the city. Leaving _him._

But at the end of the hallway, I paused. It was still there: the vase. Still sitting upon its table at the top of the stairs, as ugly as the day I'd made it. I lifted it in my hands. I hadn't even bothered to varnish it, and that it was made of mud—not clay—was sadly evident in the grit it left on my hands.

From behind me, my father's voice: "Fëanáro?"

I lifted the vase over my head. And hurled it down the stairs.

Footsteps rushing towards me and Father's voice, "Fëanáro, I am—" The vase rolled and bounced on each step and would not break.

"—I am coming with you."

Unharmed, it rolled from the last step to the floor. And shattered.


	11. Hatred

For Mirien is a quadrabble about hatred between two cousins. And passion.

This story is set just before Fëanor's exile and is about the relationship that might have existed at this time between Maedhros and Fingon. It was written to have two meanings. If you take the first meaning, at face value, then it is simply a dark story about friendship turned to animosity.

If you choose to look at it from the second angle, then that "animosity" was spurred by a different sort of passion.

**This is a slash story.** If you do not like slash, do us both a favor and skip this one. It is not graphic, but it is dark and not for the faint of heart.

**Hatred**

I hate him.

My eyes are drawn to him upon entering the clearing. It is the Winter Festival, and swaying lanterns are strung amid the trees and bonfires paint the people in a feral, throbbing light. There he is, hair the color and texture of flame; silver eyes bright in the darkness.

I hate him.

From across the clearing, his gaze is drawn to mine, and we stare for a long moment before he turns and moves away and lets the shadows swallow him. I see a lick of scarlet hair as he disappears. Amid the churning bodies and dancing flames and trees that bend with the rhythm of the drums, it is all that I can see.

Until the darkness claims him.

Yet we are destined to meet. We always have been. Coming together out of duty, then friendship. Now—

Hatred.

The eldest sons of the high princes cannot linger long on the periphery, and so it is inevitable. We are held tightly in the dark clutches of the crowd, moving to its center in slow jolting starts. I see him dancing with a maiden, long-fingered hands pale against the dark silk of her gown, pressing into her warm flesh beneath. He bumps me, and I seize that long fire-bright hair, defiant.

Passionate.

He strikes me in defense, an open hand across my cheek, a sound that falls between the relentless drumbeats. He wears a ring on that hand, and it cuts my face in a stuttering line. I am staring at his mouth, thin lips that I have not seen smile in a long, long time.

My fingers become a fist and meet that mouth, darkening his lips with his own blood.

Strong arms seize me from behind, just as he is seized by Macalaurë, and we are dragged apart. The cut on my face is throbbing in time with my heartbeat, matching the drums, then faster. Frantic. His blood is upon my knuckle, I see, when the crowd swallows him again and I can spare a glance for someone other than him.

Red blood on white skin.

Turukáno releases my arms with a disgusted admonishment before returning to the arms of his wife. The cut on my face throbs faster until it is just _pain_. Will it leave a scar? I hope that it will.

I lift my fist to my mouth and lick away his blood.


	12. FallingForever

Because I have more people I want to write for than there are days in December, some days will necessarily have multiple pieces. Today is such a day. Today is Caranthir Romance Day. Because I sometimes honestly believe that I am friends with Caranthir's most passionate core of fangurls, I usually end up giving stories about him the most as gifts. And romances are popular—particularly when that unreferenced "she" could be anyone!

So today, I have written two Caranthir romances, each five hundred words (though slightly different formats) and each a different pairing. The first is dedicated to Kasiopea, who is always such a help and inspiration to my work. A while back, she asked for a short story about Caranthir's betrothal to his wife, and the story is in progress and forever unfinished. One day (soon, I hope), I will finally finish putting all of the words in my mind onto paper.

"Falling/Forever" is about Caranthir during the days of his father's exile in Formenos when—according to my Felakverse—he first fell in love with his eventual wife Taryindë.

**Falling/Forever**

**I. Purple**

She loves purple.

She lifts an orchid to brush against her face, smiling, savoring. Or stares into the east, where the black sky and silver Treelight and reflection from the sea made a purplish hue along the horizon.

I lie upon my back and count the numberless stars overhead—or at least I pretend to. Really I am watching her.

A slender hand extends to the east, as though she can gather that purple sky and bring it to her. I think of armfuls of purple flowers bound in ribbons of the same and wonder….

But no. I don't dare.

**II. Unsound Emotion**

I tease her about it because she is not the sort to adore such a dainty color, preferring to ride hard alongside her brothers during the Spring Hunt to sitting primly like the ladies in Tirion, drinking spiced tea from mugs trimmed in purple.

She punches me for my insolence, hard jabs delivered to my side, knuckles and ribs. Bone and bone. It hurts and leaves bruises spreading beneath my skin, blue edged in purple.

"Look," I say, lifting my shirt. "Your favorite color!" and this time, she pinches me under the arm.

"That mark," she explains, "will be red."

**III. Black**

"Purple," she tells me, "is better than black."

For I adore black and wear little else. "It is easy to match clothes in the morning," I explain, "and I don't have to worry about stains."

But purple, she says, is the color of nobility. Of honor and courage. And of proper love, not the sort defined by red and ruled by unsound emotions but the kind that lasts over ages, as trusty as a heartbeat.

Purple is the color of beauty—not youthful, frivolous beauty—but the kind that doesn't fade.

And at last: Purple is the color of forever.

**IV. Falling**

"Then what is black?" I ask her.

She answers: darkness, nightmares, the end of the world. Black is the color of falling.

"Nonetheless," I tell her, daringly, "I think that you would look nice in black."

Both of our faces turn red: the color of unsound emotion.

There is a festival coming up in celebration of spring. The beginning of spring or—she says—maybe the ending of winter. "Are they different?" I ask, and she shrugs.

"Perhaps."

Though winter lingers, flowers are already emerging from the soil, and I am careful not to tread them. Especially the purple ones.

**V. Forever**

I dally long before making an appearance at the festival, for I feel silly. And I _look_ silly too, judging by the way my brothers glance quickly at me and look away, careful not to laugh.

I suppose that purple is just not my color.

And the one for whom I wear it is not even here.

I am about to return to my chambers and exchange the purple tunic for a black one when I see her. Her face is reddened, like mine, and she wears a black gown with purple flowers affixed.

The colors of falling. And forever.


	13. The Lesson

For Unsung Heroine is a quibble about Caranthir and Haleth. Heroine has written such beautiful stories about this pairing that it is sometimes hard to force my mind back to my own verse and remember that Haleth/Caranthir is not _really_ canon. This piece is set before their romance escalates, when Caranthir is still having naughty thoughts about his companion under the pretense of teaching her how to properly defend herself with a sword.

This quibble does contain mild sexuality but should be suitable for teenaged and adult audiences.

**The Lesson**

I gave her a sword and taught her how to use it. Because I feared for her, I said, and her safety as the chief defender of her people. Folding my hand over hers, adjusting her grip in the hilt. "That is correct," I said, yet I did not want to let go, for I loved the touch of her skin. Her pale hair, eager face turned to mine. Freckles across her nose, giving an illusion of perpetual youth but for her gray eyes far too grave.

"Once," she told me, "my eyes were blue.

"Then my father and my brother died."

Yet it was a midsummer's day, beautiful, with a sky so blue and untroubled as to sear the eyes of one who gazed too long upon it. "Today is a day full of hope," I told her, tightening my hand on hers, "and thoughts only of the future."

How I longed to see her turn to me and smile as her eyes met mine. _Blue_ eyes met mine. I adjusted her stance. She resisted my touch, then succumbed. She moved with me, flesh no longer resisting the touch of flesh. Slowly, she parried with me. _Like dancing,_ I longed to tell her, but I suspected that she knew nothing of that.

She was but twenty years old—young in the years of her people and a mere babe in the years of mine—yet there were lines beside her mouth from too much frowning.

I counted carefully, and she matched her steps to my voice. For each count, my heart pounded hard against my chest, three times. Sweat prickled beneath my light armor. Yet her movements were careful and studied, and I knew that she was not watching the way that my body danced so perfectly through the air, as light and graceful as a breeze. Our blades knocked together in an awkward, reluctant rhythm.

Her lips followed my count—o_ne, two, three—_but she spoke no word.

Her people had come with crude weapons: knives chipped from stone and heavy hammers that wearied one's arm to wield. Nay, a sword suited her better: a beautiful weapon that complimented her grace and intensity. We began to move faster. She was seamless, boneless. Beautiful.

Yet no match for my skill. When the pace quickened yet again, I easily disarmed her and stood upon her blade in the dust, watching the way that her chest rose and fell rapidly inside her leather armor. The sheen of sweat on her skin. Her eyes turned to mine and reflected the blue sky, and for a moment—

Quavering fingers touched my face, a thumb tracing the contour of my cheek. Her lips were damp and slightly parted, and I lowered my face to hers for a kiss.

I felt it then: a jolt as her lips met mine and the kiss of stone, having cut through my armor in a single swift stroke and coming to rest—cold—against my bare skin beneath.


End file.
